


Can't turn away from your light

by Wherethereissmoak



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, Post 5x17 fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-24
Updated: 2017-03-24
Packaged: 2018-10-10 00:19:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10425060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wherethereissmoak/pseuds/Wherethereissmoak
Summary: Thea Queen arrives at the hospital after hearing about Oliver's torture at the hands of Prometheus. Felicity won't let Oliver reject everyone.





	

**Author's Note:**

> My attempt at a post-5x17 fic. Mostly I just miss Thea. Hope you enjoy.

Diggle turned around at the sound of heels clicking quickly down the hospital’s corridor. Thea Queen was barreling toward him at an alarming rate.

“I’m here! I’m here! I’m so sorry, I just got Felicity’s messages! How is her?” She peered into the hospital room to see her brother lying unconscious in the bed, and the blonde hacker sitting in a chair next to him, holding his hand.

“Physically, it’s not great, but he’ll be fine. He has several broken ribs, wounds from three arrows, blood loss, and a burn injury on his chest,” Diggle explained. “He was also severely dehydrated and sleep deprived.”

“Oh my God, I’m going to kill that bastard,” Thea said. She was furious with Chase, but she was also angry at herself. She had ditched her cell phone when she had left town, wanting to truly get away from it all. What kind of person did not know their brother was kidnapped for six days? Felicity had used facial recognition to find her, and then had called the local bar she frequented to finally get her a message.

“There’s more, Thea,” Digg said. “Those are just the physical injuries.”

“Mentally?”

“I’ve never seen your brother like this before. Even when he I first met him when he got back from the island,” Diggle said. “He is totally and utterly broken. The first thing he did when he was released by Chase was to disband the team and tell us he couldn’t be the Green Arrow anymore. He couldn’t make eye contact with anyone. It’s bad, Thea.”

“Was Felicity able to talk to him?”

Diggle shook his head.

“He passed out from exhaustion right after he told us that, and we believed his injuries were too much for us to handle on our own, so we brought him here to Dr. Schwartz,” Diggle explained. “Felicity hasn’t left his side.”

Thea nodded.

“Much as I think I have sway with my brother, if anyone can bring him back, it’s her,” she said.

****

Felicity sat in silence, staring at the wounded Oliver while he slept. She was so grateful that he was alive and back safe. But she was worried.

Not about his injuries, as she had seen him survive worse. She was worried about how he had seemed when he walked into the Arrow bunker. In the past, no matter the status of their relationship, he had always looked into her eyes when speaking. And he had barely lifted his head when declaring he was done being the Green Arrow.

And on top of that – she had taken a step forward to offer him comfort and he had recoiled. She knew that her and Oliver had not been on touchy-touchy basis lately, but he had never run from her touch. And his shoulders were slumped in a way that told her that the man that she loved was totally and utterly broken.

And she did, love him that is. There is nothing like having your ex be kidnapped for a week to make you realize that you could not possibly move on from him. Oh, the things she had done to try to locate him while he was gone, and Chase had just let him go. She had gotten in deep with Helix, and she was pretty sure there wasn’t a way for her to get out.

While Oliver was sent back for scans, she had slipped away to call Lyla, and the two of them had made a plan to for her to disappear for a while. Felicity needed to hide out of site before the NSA figured out what she had done. She needed to work on the back end to point all the fingers at Helix and their illegal activities. Once she realized the things they were doing, it was too late. She was already embedded to far into their organization in her attempts to find both Susan then Oliver. They had more than enough dirt on her to threaten taking her to the authorities if she didn’t keep quiet or continue to work for them.

But that was for her to worry about tomorrow. Now all she cared about was that Oliver was back and on his way to healing. Felicity knew she could not leave though until she knew that his heart was healing as well.

The man in question started stirring. His eyes opened quickly and he surveyed the room for threats. When Oliver’s gaze landed on her, she saw a roller coaster of emotions in his eyes. Love, relief, sadness, pain. He closed his eyes and turned his head away from her.

“Hey, Oliver, you’re in the hospital; you’re safe,” she said softly.

“Have you had those glasses all week?” he asked in a dull voice. Felicity raised her eyebrows in surprise – both at his question and at the deadness in his tone.

“Uh, no, actually. Mine were missing from home so I had to grab my spare pair from the bunker. Why do you ask?”

He didn’t turn his head back to her or answer her question. Felicity gasped.

“Chase took them, didn’t he? He got into the loft somehow and took them?”

Again she was met with silence.

“Oh, God, Oliver. He showed them to you and you thought…” she jumped up and sat on the edge of the bed and grabbed his hand. He tried to pull away but she wouldn’t let him. He still wouldn’t look at her. “I’m fine, baby, I’m here. He didn’t get to me. He didn’t touch me.”

“He was in the loft, and we didn’t even know,” Oliver murmured. “He could have…”

“But he didn’t,” Felicity said firmly.

“Felicity, you need to get away from me,” He said, still talking in his dull tone. “Being around me is dangerous. You and Diggle? I’ve ruined your lives. You need to move on.”

“Uh, uh, mister. We’ve done this dance before. We’ve done the ‘it’s too dangerous for us to be together’ and we’ve done the attempt to move on,” Felicity snapped. “I think we can both agree that didn’t work out well in either case.”

“I’m a monster. I’m poison,” he said. She still could not see his eyes, but she could hear his voice breaking, so she knew there were probably tears in them. “I liked killing people. I wanted to kill people.”

Felicity forced herself to remain calm when she really wanted to run out of the room and use all of her resources to end Chase.

“That’s what he made you think,” she whispered.

“No, it’s true. It’s my secret,” Oliver said. He rolled over on his back and closed his eyes, but she could still see the anguish on his face.

Felicity leaned forward and cupped both his cheeks in her hands and held them there. He tried to pull away, but eventually leaned into her touch.

“Oliver Queen, that was the man who was on the island. The man who was with the Bratva. The man who returned to civilization with the mission from his father. That man killed without blinking an eye,” Felicity said. “I met that man and I can tell you that he is very different than the man who is in front of me today.”

Oliver opened his eyes and looked at her, tears still filling them.

“Your mom, Thea, Tommy, me, Roy, Sara, Laurel, Lance, Curtis, Rene, Rory…I could go on…you let these people in. You let them help you change. You started to care. And the monster…he started to die,” Felicity said.

“Yeah but many of those are dead or their life is worse off because of me,” Oliver said.

“Absolutely not. They are dead because bad people made bad choices,” Felicity said. “And good people made good choices to try to stop them. That’s it. End of story.”

“But…”

“No.”

“Felic…”

“No.”

Oliver sighed.

“You don’t understand,” he told her, trying to turn away again, but she wouldn’t let him. She grabbed onto his uninjured arm as tight as she could.

“I understand that a lunatic tortured you for days and used your worst thoughts and fears against you,” Felicity said. “Now I’m here to use the best thoughts for you. Yes, you are not perfect and you have made some very questionable choices, but you have also saved many lives.”

Oliver just remained silent as she talked.

“After this is over, we are going to find you a really good, and discreet therapist. You are going to work this out, and you are finally going to put away what you carried with you from your time away on the island, China and Russia,” she said.

“I don’t know if I ever can,” he whispered. “I think I may be broken beyond repair.”

“The first step to fixing something is to realize it’s broken,” she said.

Slowly, she climbed into bed with him. She smiled when he did not back away this time. Instead, he pulled her close and laid his head on her chest. She couldn’t help but run her fingers through his hair.

“Felicity?”

“Yeah honey?”

“I don’t know if I will ever be well enough so that we…so that you and I can ever…”

She shushed him.

“It’s alright, baby. You just go to sleep and we’ll worry about that another day,” she whispered.

He nodded into her chest.

“Oliver?”

“yeah?”

“I have to go away for a while,” she felt him stiffen in her arms. “But I was wondering if you wanted to go away with me? You could probably use some time away to heal.”

She knew he would have plenty more questions for her when he was feeling better, but for now he just nodded and agreed to her plan. It wasn’t long before she could hear his heavy breathing in his sleep. Exhausted, she rested her head on his and fell asleep too.

****

Thea watched her brother and Felicity sleep, grateful that her friend had been able to provide him with some comfort. She wanted to talk to him, but she knew that spending time with Felicity, his “light” was the best thing he needed right now.

She heard a voice at the nurses station asking about Oliver and turned to see Susan Williams heading in her direction. Thea forced herself to hold back her previous anger at the woman. She noticed that the reporter still had fading bruises on her face from her own time with Prometheus.

“Susan,” she said.

“Thea…hi. How’s Oliver?”

“He’ll live. He has a lot of injuries and that monster messed with his mind quite a bit,” Thea said sadly.

Susan cringed.

“Yeah, Prometheus alluded to something like that when he had me,” she said. “He wanted me to leak the information about Oliver being the Green Arrow.”

“I noticed you haven’t,” Thea said.

“Yeah, well, I thought about it. I still don’t know how I feel about what he’s done, what he’s doing. And how effective of a mayor he really is,” she said. “But then I heard from a source that he was here and I just had to…”

“You do care about him…at least a little…don’t you?” Thea asked.

“Yeah, I mean, we didn’t have an epic romance or anything, but I started dating him for information and I kind of liked him,” she said.

Thea couldn’t help but roll her eyes at Susan.

“How romantic,” she snarked.

Susan peered through the window at Oliver and Felicity sleeping in each other’s arms.

“Yeah, well, it seems like Oliver wasn’t really available for an epic romance with me anyway,” she said. “I think he was already in one.”

Thea just nodded and gave the woman a small smile.

“I’m leaving town to stay with family and try to build a life outside of this damn city,” the reporter said. “Can you tell Oliver goodbye for me?”

Thea nodded and Susan took one last look at Oliver and Felicity before turning to leave.

“Susan?” Thea said.

“Yeah?”

“Oliver’s green secret?”

“Safe with me…for now,” Susan said as she walked away.

Thea also took a last look at her brother and his light before turning to leave. She opened the cell phone that Diggle had lent her.

“Curtis? It’s Thea. Gather the team. It’s time to kick Prometheus’ ass,” she said. She was ready to don her red hood. Her brother had saved her so many times in the past.

Today, she would save him.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. Our two will still have a long way to go after this, but it is a step toward that direction.


End file.
